I opened up my friend list and sent Lin Yixin a message: “Snowy Cathaya isn’t here trying to compete for the boss. This… doesn’t quite seem to fit your usual modus operandi.”

Lin Yixin opened up a chat window, her silvery peals of laughter ringing in my ears. “Stupid Lu Chen, don’t you forget that I’ve always been an intelligent warrior. Just how many good pieces of equipment can that Level 145 Spirit Rank boss even drop? Besides, with so many guilds trying to snatch it, the winner will inevitably end up suffering a pyrrhic victory. Everyone’s going to sacrifice the levels of thousands of players just for a chance to get a piece of equipment they may not even obtain. That’s so not worth it! Anyway, I decided to wait for someone else to open the guild territory system before I go and snatch it away from them!”

“Fuck… that’s really unlike you!”

“Heehee, actually the main reason is…”

“The main reason is?”

“The main reason is that I haven’t even eaten lunch yet and I just got back from the hospital too! My life isn’t so easy! I’m going to go offline and eat a boxed meal before I come back…”

“Damn…”

……

“So what’s the situation?” He Yi asked. She knew that I had just contacted Lin Yixin.

I turned around and said, “Lin Yixin said that Snowy Cathaya isn’t going to participate in this fight. They’re going to wait for the guild territory to spawn before snatching it away!”

“Oh, so they’re going to bide their time and wait for a perfect opportunity!”

“Yup!”

“So what are we going to do?”

I glanced at the boss who only had 15% of its HP left and drew the Heaven-stealing Sword. I said with a grin, “I don’t really care what Snowy Cathaya intends to do. This boss still belongs to Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Alright everyone! It’s time to go to war!”

“Yes!”

Everyone was overflowing with excitement. All of our hands had started to itch after watching the other players fiercely clash with each other.

I pointed my sword down toward the valley as I said, “Remember, don’t lose your head in battle! Our formation will be like a sharp spear that pierces through the enemy line. As long as the people at the tip of the spear can get to the boss and snatch it, it will be mission accomplished! If not, we’ll suffer even more losses and now that all of us are trying to rush to our fifth promotion, we can’t afford to drop levels here! Do you understand?!”

“Aye, aye captain!” Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun was sitting on his Bald Wolf as he hefted his sharp sword.

He licked his lips and grinned. “It’s too bad that the mount I got from the CGL Who Will Rise tournament needs its user to be Level 115. If not, I’d also be one of our major players!”

I chuckled and replied. “There’s no need to be anxious. Your time to shine will come sooner rather than later!”

That was right. Even though Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun stats were pretty good, he hadn’t reached the summit yet. It would be a different discussion altogether if he had a high-rank mount though. In fact, I also hoped that he could start using that Earth Lizard Youngling as soon as possible, because once he did, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls would have another player in the big leagues.

Battle cries shook the air as we thundered down the hillside. He Yi and Gui Guzi formed the very tip of our spear formation. Both knights had extremely high Defense and HP, and this was further bolstered by He Yi’s Royal Road and Tactics. It would be impossible for the noobs of Mad Dragon to stop them.

The frontline players of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls activated Charge and this immediately broke the patience of all the other waiting guilds.

Warsky Alliance’s October Rain pointed at the valley below as she said, “Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls have made their move, so it’s also time for us to strike. Let’s go! Subdue that boss and grab that Territory Token!”

On the other side of the basin, a female archer appeared at the same time. Shockingly enough, it was the vice leader of The Monarch Descends—Ling Xueshang. Purple Wind Chime, Mo Xiaoxiao, and a bunch of other warriors were standing behind her.

Once Ling Xueshang gave the command, the players of The Monarch Descends streamed down the hill. They had also come to compete for this boss!

……

“Here come the players of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls!” a low-level player from a minor guild yelled.

His cry immediately caused a bunch of elite warriors over Level 100 to wheel toward him. They raised their longswords in the air as they yelled, “Kill them! Beat back Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls!”

He Yi arrived at the very head of her troops. Her spear swept forward as she unleashed a Green Wave Slash. A viridian wave of spear energy crashed into those warriors, causing a string of damage numbers to appear over their heads.

6743!

4892!

5729!

……

The HP bars of these warriors had nearly been depleted in that single instant. Meanwhile, Gui Guzi was coming in right behind He Yi. His spear swept forward, his Aurora Thrust creating a straight line shockwave that sliced through all of these warriors. Dozens of high-level warriors collapsed to the ground as they instantly transformed into icy corpses!

I swiftly charged to the front and used Thunderous Charge to catch up with the two knights leading the line. After that, I leapt into the air and landed with a War Crush, causing clods of dirt to fly into the air. A loud screeching sound immediately rang out, as my attack instantly cleared an entire area clean of players. Mad Dragon’s losses were mounting and the players who had fallen just outside the radius of my attack scrambled backward as if they had just seen a ghost.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

He Yi added players from Mad Dragon, Hegemon Palace, and Flower Room as targets of her Royal Road, causing their stats to drop by at least 15%. Doing this required the user to have extremely good mechanical skill and reaction speed, but this was well within He Yi’s capabilities. It was simply another display of how much her combat ability had risen!

However, it seemed to have risen by a little bit too much, and in her irritation, He Yi added every guild that was not Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls and Bloody Mercenaries as targets of her Royal Road. If any enemy player got too close to He Yi, their stats would drop by 30%!

……

Coldmoon Rose swiveled her curvy hips toward us as she pointed her bow at the teeming ranks of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. She shouted, “All together now, focus your strongest attacks on them!”

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

When arrows poured down like a swarm of locusts, He Yi and Gui Guzi immediately rushed to the very front of the line and activated their Holy Shield to block most of the attacks.

The arrows thudded against their shield rhythmically before bouncing off, but they only caused double-digit numbers to pop up above both players’ heads. It was an infuriating sight to behold!

Royal Road was simply too strong. It not only boosted all allies’ defensive stats and health by 30%, it also weakened the opposing archers’ offensive power by 30%. Even if these archers normally had a slight chance of oneshotting He Yi or Gui Guzi, that chance basically dropped to zero once He Yi activated Royal Road.

After we weathered the storm of arrows, He Yi and Gui Guzi shifted their shields to allow Li Chengfeng, High Fighting Spirits, Xu Yang, and I to rush out towards the enemy. Three of us led with our AoE attacks like Ice Breaking Slash. Xu Yang still didn’t have an AoE skill, so he used Blaze instead. After a round of combat, all of the magic knights on the enemy’s frontline collapsed to the ground. Not a single one of them had survived our furious assault.

Beiming Xue supported us from behind as she coordinated the attacks of a few dozen archers. Arrows danced through the air and her Tactics-bolstered Bow God skill transformed her group of archers into a bunch of god-slaying heroes! Their attack was raised by 100% and even skills like Multi Arrow and Volley were enough to blow opposing players to kingdom come. Once again, a huge patch of space was cleared up in a single instant.

At this moment, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ Famous Generals, formations, and tactics had reached the peak of excellence. Even Mad Dragon, who had been building their strength in secret for a long time, were teetering on the brink of collapse after their first brush against us. They were completely helpless before us and Coldmoon Rose’s face started to twist up in rage. She raised her longbow as she yelled, “Retreat together with me, we won’t be able to hold this position!”

We continued to surge forward even as Mad Dragon retreated. The spearhead of our forces drove Coldmoon Rose and the rest of Mad Dragon to within 100 yards of the boss.

At this time, I saw that the boss still had around 8% of its HP left and breathed a sigh of relief. Now that we were so close to the boss, there was no way we would lose it to anyone else. We just needed to use Charge once to get within striking range of it.

“Lu Chen, is our mission to kill the boss or to grab the Territory Token?” Xu Yang asked.

I replied, “Both. If not, won’t the brothers that have accompanied us here have come for nothing? We owe it to them to kill the boss as well!”

“Alright, let’s activate the guild’s EXP-sharing mode. If we kill the boss, everyone here will get some EXP and we’ll even get a good amount of guild EXP too!”

“Okay, let me do it!”

Xu Yang had made an excellent suggestion. Since none of the major players of the guild needed to level urgently and a Level 145 Spirit Rank boss would give an extremely generous amount of EXP, we could offer to share the EXP with everyone here. Since there were more than one thousand of our guild members present, there wouldn’t be much EXP distributed to each person, but it was still a huge amount of EXP being contributed to the group!

……

In the distance, October Rain was urging the forces of Warsky Alliance forward as Warsky himself led their line. They had already come within striking distance of the boss. On the other side, Ling Xueshang and The Monarch Descends had also gotten close enough to the boss to attack it.

Meanwhile, Mad Dragon, Gods of Destruction, Flower Room, Snow of Frozen River, Heavenly Plan Palace and the dozens of guilds at that level also started to fight viciously amongst themselves!

Mad Dragon’s last line of defense finally collapsed after another round of fierce attacks and Roaming Dragon retreated together with Coldmoon Rose. However, they were immediately swallowed up by a tide of players from Gods of Destruction the very next instant.

At this point, our vanguard had already gotten within the boss’ attack range as well. He Yi used Royal Road to lower the boss’s stats, but it was 75% less effective on the boss. It only dropped its stats by around 8%.

This was all too normal. Tactics normally had a much weaker effect against bosses, and it was the same with Candlelight Shadow’s Ghost God Prophecy. It could be used against a boss, but it could not kill a boss. It could only reduce a boss’s HP by 10% after 10 minutes while also making it impossible for the boss to recover health.

But Candlelight Shadow had still used this powerful Famous General Skill to take down many bosses which should have been unkillable and his equipment wasn’t any bit inferior to mine.

“Keke…”

The Death Lord let out a deep howl of rage and a wave of spear energy swept out from its body. That attack was so powerful that it sent Laughing At The Heavens, Warsky Alliance’s best magic knight, stumbling backward and also very nearly broke his shield when it dealt more than 8000 points of damage to him. If the Death Lord launched another attack, Laughing At The Heavens would’ve been dead meat. He was so shocked by the strength of this blow that he ran to the rear, hollering for Priests to heal him.

Gui Guzi charged onward, launching a series of fierce attacks to grab the Death Lord’s aggro. As long as we managed to lure it into Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls formation, it would be a done deal. We had excellent skills when it came to juggling bosses, so it wouldn’t be able to escape our grasp if we succeeded in luring it in!

The boss’s sharp blade slashed down once more as it slammed against Gui Guzi’s shield. It had actually used Flurry and sparks flew in the air as three damage numbers appeared above Gui Guzi’s head.

7844!

+3922!

7902!

+3951!

7129!

+3564!

Gui Guzi’s body sagged a little, but he didn’t retreat a single step. He responded by shifting his shield to the side and stabbing the Death Lord with his spear. He now had more than 20000 HP, so even the boss’s Flurry would not be able to one-shot him. Besides, he also had the Undying Shield which allowed him to convert 50% of the damage taken into HP. His incredible vitality made Laughing At The Heavens’ face to go pale as he muttered under his breath, “Fuck, Gui Guzi’s Undead Knight class is simply ridiculous…”

Murong Mingyue and Moon Dew, who were standing behind Gui Guzi, were furiously casting their healing spells on Gui Guzi. They made sure that Gui Guzi’s HP bar didn’t dip below 80%. He Yi was helping him to attack and tank the boss.

Meanwhile, all of the main damage dealers like Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, High Fighting Spirits, and I stood on the sidelines without attacking. We were readying our ultimate techniques while waiting for the Death Lord’s HP to drop to 1%. The moment that happened, we would unleash our ultimate attacks and guarantee the kill for our guild!

Beiming Xue and her archers now became the main stars of the show. Their arrows fell like lightning and countless “thuds” were heard as those arrows thumped against the boss’s body. In the short span of two minutes, we had actually reduced the boss’s HP to 2%!

……

As he observed us from a distance, October Rain’s eyes went cold as she declared, “Warsky, Laughing At The Heavens, charge forward and take that down that boss for us!”

The final, critical moment had arrived at last, and everyone was going to go for broke!